<p>I’m so happy to read that you will be going to OSU Honors! Congratulations! Your parents are giving you the wonderful gift of an undergraduate degree at no expense to you. At the same time, they will be able to live out the dream they worked & saved so hard for, an early retirement. When you are done grieving CMU, you will see that you have a great opportunity in front of you and it’s a win/win for the entire family. There’s no need for long term resentment as ClassicRockerDad suggested. </p>
<p>It may not seem like it now, but it’s all good!</p>
<p>I will also tell you straight from the heart that OSU is a much nicer school over all. CMU is absolutely tops in CS, I agree fully. BUt it’s not the traditional college experience there. For a school of its size and caliber, its retention and grad rates are abysmal. I know many, many who have gone to either school, and for the most part the ones at OSU, by a wide margin have had the overall better experience. That is one great school. Again, I say this as a parent who would probably break the bank to send you to CMU under your circumstances. I am looking at it from all sides here. </p>
<p>I know ever so many parents who raised their kids with the assurance that they could go whereever they got in for college, and when the time came, they balked financially, whether they really could “afford” to do it or not They had their retirement and futures lined up and a quarter million dollar hit can really be a wrecking ball to that. They may also have had other things in the financial picture that they did not want to discuss and not visible in the Fin aid paperwork. Remember, debts and expenses are not listed, the schools do NOT take that into consideration at all and don’t even want to know about it except as it affects the market value of an asset, so you absolutely cannot get a good financial snap shot from the info on those forms. </p>
Those are not “real” numbers. Those are only the numbers that the CSS considers relevant to financial aid decisions. Those are the numbers that determine the colleges’ calculations of the EFC. And if you believe the EFC is “affordable”, please read these boards for a while, and see a parental view of EFC v. “affordable.” (I know that our EFC was nowhere near “affordable” in the real world.) As cptofthehouse says, there’s a lot that’s not on those documents that makes up a family’s true financial status and economy.</p>
<p>What to do now - focus on OSU Honors. Treat CMU as if you had gotten rejected (except keep the pride knowing that you weren’t!). Grab the opportunity you’ve been given with both hands and make the most of it.</p>
<p>Feeling better about OSU now from what I see here!</p>
<p>I confirmed the numbers with my mother last week, and also learned that our financial situation is actually better than what it there due to deferred salary type shenanigans and a promotion that wasn’t accounted for yet so the debate about that is unnecessary. It is their decision though and they decided.</p>
<p>MMRSR, don’t go counting other people’s money. We have defeered comp, we have a 99999 EFC and we can’t afford CMU without some financial issues. Though, yes, I’d probably risk them for a kid who is accepted for CS there, but really, we should not. Our kids did not even give it a thought or question when we so said that so much was our max. When you start looking at what anyone should be paying for you, it leads to nothing but trouble Look at the Menendez brothers.</p>
<p>Why on Earth would someone instruct a high school student to resent their parents for years for not spending six figures to send them to their first choice school? Especially when it appears that the parents are fully paying for four years at a very fine public institution and their child will be in no debt after graduating, as I understand it? They didn’t say “You can’t go to college ever!” they simply said “You can’t go to THIS really expensive college, but you can go to this just as good college that we can afford.” That’s immature and childish. It’s the equivalent of telling someone to throw a hissy fit because their parents bought them a brand-new Toyota instead of a BMW. They still got a brand new car, and they do essentially the same thing.</p>
<p>I’m glad OP is getting more excited about OSU!</p>
<p>However, the money talk should have been done before the application list was made. Where the real trouble happens is if the money talk does not happen until April, when the kid gets into no colleges that the parents are willing to contribute the needed amount for (unlike this case, where OSU is a perfectly fine choice).</p>
<p>I hope this was written tongue-in-cheek because, if not, this is an outrageous thing to tell a 17- or 18-year-old kid!</p>
<p>It’s great if you want/can afford to pay full price to send two kids to private colleges or universities, but that doesn’t make it morally superior. It’s not like the parents of OP are kicking the kid to the curb. We’re talking Ohio State here, not some third-rate directional state school! </p>
<p>And it’s pretty clear from the OP’s posts that the parents NEVER suggested they would pay for just ANY school; OP chose to believe otherwise and hope they’d change their minds. He was wrong. That’s not THEIR fault!</p>
<p>You’re feeling awfully generous with other people’s money. Maybe YOU should offer to pay for OP to attend CMU!</p>
<p>Go to OSU. Take this all into account if you ever have to pick (and pay for) a nursing home for your parents. If they really retire at age 55, you may have to.</p>
<p>Note: the parents said they’d pay for Princeton, apparently. If that’s true, I don’t really approve of their outlook.</p>
<p>Maybe they said they’d consider paying for Princeton, before they knew what it would cost. It’s not like teenagers are ever guilty of hearing only what they want to hear!</p>
<p>“Take this all into account if you ever have to pick (and pay for)a nursing home for your parents.” That type of advice to a teenager is as distasteful as the advice to resent your parents because you didn’t get what you want. </p>
<p>OP, My husband graduated from CMU many years ago. Our own kids went to state schools. Not every parent wants to or is in a position to pay for an expensive private school. Your parents are willing to pay for OSU so you are way ahead of many kids your age that are having to pay for school themselves. Have a great time at OSU!</p>
<p>Approving or not approving of the parents’ outlooks is not the issue here. Either OP can get parents to pay for CMU, and he knows them better than we do, or he can’t. It’s the parents’ choice and right to do what they please with their money. </p>
<p>OP, I sympathize. It sucks. But you will get a great education and have a great college experience at OSU. Good for you to shift gears and embrace that option. </p>
<p>And now you know that to truly be free and be able to do what you want, you have to be able to pay for it. My folks used money to control us, too. My sibs and I decided we didn’t like it and found ways to pay for what we wanted (military service, that’s why I keep mentioning it, scholarships, jobs, cheaper schools). My folks also had plenty of money. I think the root of their desire to control was not the money, but just to keep us closer. It didn’t work. It did cause resentment. I will say that over the years we have all gotten over it, though. </p>
<p>Suck it up and go to state school. If you’re as awesome as you seem to think you are, then you’ll be a superstar there and can go to your dream school for a graduate degree and take out the loans to pay for it yourself. </p>
<p>LucietheLakie: for CIT, yes, CMU IS Princeton. Or actually, for CS…BETTER.</p>
<p>OP: Congratulations on getting into CIT. It means a great deal and your parents don’t understand what it MEANS in the CS world. Grieve. Rant, even. You are right to be upset. On the other hand, you hoped they changed their minds but clearly they’d always indicated they didn’t really want to spend more than a certain amount on your higher schooling, for whatever reason… You also got into OSU Honors: good for you.
This may actually be a blessing in disguise: CMU is quite unforgiving. Your experience is likely to be more enjoyable at OSU. Reserve a room in the Honors Dorm right away. Check out the Facebook page, see if you “click” with other Honors admits so that you can room together.
Start contacting CS professors there. Explain you are part of the Honors College and what type of algorythms/sequences/problems you’ve been working on, what languages you know, what you’d like to accomplish. See if you can work for them right away as a freshman. Ask what class you’d likely be placed into and what you need to do so you can get to grad-level CS classes (if you could take grad level classes as a junior it’d be awesome).</p>
<p>At over $63K/year to attend CMU, I’d love to feel entitled to tell your parents how they should spend a quarter-million dollars. How it is their moral obligation, even. But I don’t. People make decisions on how they want to spend their earnings. It isn’t as if they are casting out of the house at 18 with a handshake and an offer to keep in touch. They just don’t see CMU as worth a quarter-million dollars more than OSU.
How? I don’t see any lie here. the promise was about paying for college, not what college you would attend. If your parents are footing the bill for OSU then they keep their promise 100%.</p>
<p>As the earlier posts show, not every parent would make the same decision. But yours did. So you are on a fence here. You can be miserable for months, for years, for the rest of your life even about this grievous treatment. Carry that chip on your shoulder. Or you can look on the side of what you do have. A chance to go to a fine college, get a respected degree, and a great job. As Reinhold Niebuhr said
<p>I’m probably gonna send my check in for tOSU soon, not thrilled but alright enough. For me this does mean that I am dead set on getting a doctorate, less because I’m not content with the opportunities to make $$$ for osu grads but because of the opportunities to have really interesting experiences with a top level degree.</p>
<p>I don’t resent my parents much now, but if I follow through on my end and graduate with honors/ high GPA/ research etc and still strike out at the elite grad schools I fully intend to get a job and as far away from them as possible because of this.</p>
<p>They would have been fine with my attending far far worse schools than OSU, but I was lucky enough to get both in state tuition and money on top of that to make the cost difference something I would be able to make up with loans without a cosigner (and after threatening to do so they gave in). </p>
</p>